[pjw] NEWS: NO WAR ON IRAN, Israel ponders "swift retaliation"

[Peace and Justice Works]

Hi
The world's logic makes my brain hurt. Israel has the right to defend 
itself and attacks Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen and nothing's said 
about their inappropriate and often heavy handed responses. (Or that much 
of the time they're "pre-emptive" and not in any way responding to an 
actual imminent threat or previous attack.)

But now that Iran fired over 100 missiles at Israel-- claiming no 
casualties, from what I've read-- people are speculating how Israel will 
retaliate against the retaliation (for killing a Hamas leader on their 
territory, a diplomat in Syria, and a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon). Will 
they blow up nuclear facilities? GREAT IDEA, SPREAD RADIATION ALL OVER. 
Will they destroy oil plants? NO PROBLEM WE ALREADY HAVE GLOBAL WARMING.

Even Trita Parsi, himself an Iranian, was on the radio saying he things 
Iran can develop a nuclear weapon very quickly, which is what the West has 
been telling us for OVER TWENTY YEARS.

Do I sound irritated?

Anyway, though it coincides with the anniversary of the invasion of 
Afghanistan, I plan to ensure we have more than the usual number of "No 
War on Iran" signs at Friday rally this week if you want to join us (5 PM 
Friday at SW Yamhill and Broadway).

Here's an NBC news article which, like other media outlets much to my 
surprise, acknowledges Israel's nuclear weapons program. But indulges in 
the same "how will they blow stuff up" dialogue instead of "how can we 
de-escalate?"

--dan handelman
peace and justice works iraq affinity group

  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-retaliate-iran-missile-attack-nuclear-oil-rcna173582
Israel has vowed its Iran retaliation will be swift and `painful' -- but what
might that look like?
    An Israeli retaliation is certain, experts agree, and an Israeli
    official told NBC News it will be swift. The open question is what it
    will look like and where it will leave the Middle East.
    Oct. 2, 2024, 1:55 PM UTC
    By Alexander Smith

    Israel has vowed to respond with violent force to Iran's ballistic
    missile attack.

    The unanswered question that loomed over the Middle East on Wednesday
    is what that response will look like: Will it serve as another
    escalation on a spiraling trajectory to all-out war? Could Israel seek
    to target Iran's oil facilities and even its nuclear sites? Or is there
    still room for the diplomacy being urged by the United States?

    One thing is clear, an Israeli official told NBC News on Wednesday --
    the country will retaliate swiftly.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's military and
    intelligence leaders were meeting at the defense ministry to discuss
    what this might look like. The official said the timeline on when
    exactly to strike was complicated by Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year,
    which begins Wednesday evening and is followed soon after by other
    Jewish holidays.

    But Israel is determined to hit back quickly, they said.

    In this cycle of "escalation after escalation," as U.N. chief António
    Guterres put it, the Iranians have already promised a more severe
    response to any Israeli retaliation. (Israel declared Guterres "persona
    non grata" for not condemning Iran.)

    Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran's relatively moderate president, told his
    Cabinet on Wednesday that if the Israelis "make a mistake" then "they
    will receive a far more crushing response."

    This is the exact scenario that Western governments and analysts
    feared: that Israel's post-Oct. 7 conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah --
    two militant groups backed by Iran -- would morph into a direct
    confrontation with Tehran itself.

    Netanyahu has made it clear he wants to change "the balance of power"
    in the Middle East, as he said last weekend. So far, that has meant
    assaulting Gaza and weakening Hamas, before obliterating Hezbollah's
    command structure, including killing its powerful leader Hassan
    Nasrallah.

    Both these fronts have come at a high cost to Palestinian and Lebanese
    civilians, with more than 41,000 people killed in Gaza and more than
    1,000 people, including 100 children, killed in Israel's bombing
    campaign in Lebanon, according to local officials.

    The last time Iran fired missiles at Israel six months ago, Washington
    persuaded Israel to hold back from a major response. This time,
    Netanyahu signaled a more hard-line response.
    Air raid sirens sounded in central Israel on October 1, the military
    said, a day after the army launched ground operations into southern
    Lebanon targeting Hezbollah positions. Israelis take cover under a
    bridge in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night.Jack Guez / AFP - Getty Images

    "Iran made a big mistake tonight -- and it will pay for it," he said
    Tuesday after the attack. "The regime in Iran does not understand our
    determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate
    against our enemies."

    Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned Iran it would "pay a heavy price,"
    while Israel's United Nations Ambassador Danny Danon said Iran would
    "bear the painful consequences."

    Some in Israel and beyond are encouraging the country to use this
    opportunity to launch an ambitious and unprecedented strike against
    Iran's nuclear facilities.

    Such a strike would "mark a new high in the tit-for-tat pattern of
    escalation, and will likely unfurl a chain reaction of unforeseeable
    events that will endanger U.S. and Western assets, interests and
    personnel in the region," Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow at
    the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, told NBC
    News.

    Whether to go this far has been a "longstanding debate" within Israel's
    intelligence and defense decision-makers, she added. "Israeli
    retaliation at this stage will be significant, but it may not be the
    maximalist hit that some on the far-right in Israel are demanding, for
    now."

    Netanyahu's office did not respond to requests for comment when asked
    last week whether it was considering this course of action.

    If not, another option might be Israel striking Iran's oil refineries.

    The Islamic Republic is the world's seventh-largest oil producer,
    responsible for 4% of the global total. This industry is the country's
    "arterial economic lifeline" and the "soft belly of Iran," Ozcelik
    added, because "without revenue from oil exports, the economy will take
    a heavy blow."

    Iran's next move could be to target Saudi oil facilities, as it was
    accused of doing by the U.S. and others in 2019, according to Ozcelik
    and industry analysts. It could also hit back by closing the key Strait
    of Hormuz maritime bottleneck.

    "This dangerous cascading effect would trigger a spike in oil prices
    and severe disruptions in the energy supply chain with a global
    knock-on effect," Ozcelik said.

    The nuclear issue has gained increasing salience in recent years.

    Iran has made significant advancements in its ability to build nuclear
    weapons since then-President Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark
    nuclear deal in 2018. It is now what's known as a "threshold state,"
    meaning it has all the components to build a nuclear weapon, according
    to the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan, nonproliferation group
    based in Washington, D.C.

    One of the reasons Israel has not targeted these facilities yet is that
    Iran has used Hezbollah as a deterrence, Matthew Savill, military
    sciences director at the Royal United Services Institute, a London
    think tank, wrote in an analysis this weekend.

    Now that Hezbollah threat has been apparently diminished, prominent
    voices are calling for Israel to strike.

    "We must act *now* to destroy Iran's nuclear program, its central
    energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime,"
    former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett wrote on X. "The octopus's
    tentacles are temporarily paralyzed -- now comes the head. We must
    remove this terrible threat to our children's future."

    It's unclear the extent to which the U.S. and its allies might be drawn
    into such an escalating conflict. The administration of President Joe
    Biden says it has been working round the clock to prevent a wider war,
    only to be frustrated and blindsided by a Netanyahu coalition that
    appears to be listening less and less.

    This week Washington has sent thousands more troops to the region, and
    its warships in the Mediterranean helped Israel shoot down some of the
    Iranian missiles fired Tuesday.

    Arms experts widely believe that Israel has around 90 nuclear weapons
    of its own, although the U.S. ally has never acknowledged it.

    That inevitably raises the stakes for any clash with Iran.

    Scholars war-gamed one potential scenario of these two foes trading
    hostilities last December, after the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7
    left some 1,200 people dead and 250 taken hostage, according to Israel.

    The war game, run by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center,
    another Washington think tank, ended with both countries firing nuclear
    weapons at each other.